Two mothers in campaign for school hot lunches
Thursday 25th June 2009, 2:56PM BST.
Kim Hanson and Lyndsey Evans have launched Food For Thought. Picture by Rob Currie (00716419)
TWO mothers are campaigning for local primary schools to provide hot lunches for children.
Kim Hanson and Lyndsey Evans believe that Jersey needs its own Jamie Oliver to revolutionise school dinners, so they have launched a new campaign, Food For Thought.
The pair, who are both working mums with two children, believe it is impossible for parents to think up different packed lunches every day and said that by the time children get to eat the contents, it is often ‘hot’, having been left out all morning.
‘Primary children take a packed lunch to school five days a week, 38 weeks a year, for seven years,’ said Mrs Hanson. ‘From an independent survey we have undertaken, we have found that most parents struggle on a daily basis to vary a packed lunch. ‘
Assistant Education director Jeremy Harris said that that no plans were currently in place to introduce hot food in primaries, but that the department welcomed dialogue to see whether anything could be done.
‘When we’re talking about facilities for hot meals, very significant capital investment would be needed, which would need to be balanced against other demands,’ he said. ‘We do provide advice to parents and teachers through our Healthy Schools Programme, though, and emphasise the need for healthy eating within schools.’
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I am happy to send my child to school with a pack lunch, at her young age of 5, she is quite happy with a sandwich, piece of cheese and some fruit. Her lunch bag is insulated, maybe if the lunches are at room temperature or warmer when it comes time to eat,then maybe the school could provide a fridge in each class to keep it cool for H&S reasons!
I am asked to pay for a daily snack and for lunch supervision already, I can’t affort another £2 -£2.50 a day on top of that for a hot lunch, especially when I cook her a balanced hot meal every night.
When I went to school in Niagara Falls, every Friday was pizza day, the kids who could afford it brought in $2 and had 4 slices of pizza which was fantastic, apart from the kids who could not afford it, my Mom being one of the parents who literally could not afford it, so while my buddies were having their hot pizza, I was eating my sandwich.
I say may your kids a nice sandwich, fruit, cheese etc etc and let them have their hot meal at night at home.
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I am pleased to hear that Jersey children are all allowed to take sandwiches. When I was seven at Moorestown in 1972, I took home a 1/2″ cube of gristle from the lunchtime stew to show my mother what god-awful food we were expected to eat.
Victoria College which I moved to later that year was little better, so I was pleased to be allowed to change to sandwiches.
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My daughter used to go school in Jersey with a packed lunch, now we live in France. She has a morning snack and drink provided, in the summer this is juice or water in the winter it is hot chocolate, hot milk or water and then for luch she has a three course meal, cooked on site. This is for 2 euros 10 cents a day. Not a chip or pizza in sight!!
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I am all for hot lunches in the winter great idea, my kids hate sandwhiches and I hate trying to find things that are healthy to put in them. I would warmly welcome things like salad, fresh rolls etc in summer and soups and warm foods in the winter.
I wish these 2 ladies all the best unfortunatly I dont think they will get very far which is a great shame.
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As a single father I have never stuggled to give my child healthy and varied lunches throughout the week. All it takes is a little imagination and organisation. How about asking your children what they would like and do that.
This is just another case of some parents wanting to dump their responsibilities onto others in an ever increasing society of dependency. I can’t believe that there are parents out there who find preparing a simple and healthy pack lunch for their kids difficult, whatever next, schools taking responsibility for dressing and washing children.
Why don’t they just hand their kids over and then get them back when they are all grown up and no so inconvenient!
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I agree with Bean All Over. What is the problem? Oh I can’t be bothered to look after my children’s welfare and want someone else to do it?
My little angel wants a different meal every day? Get a grip, socialise and disciplineyour children to appreciate what they get. The fact that they are bringing food home shows they are not that hungry or just plain spoilt. Perhaps if parents want their children provided with a hot meal the parents could collect them and do it for the kids. At least that would give the teachers a decent break instead of 10 mins to eat their sandwiches and having to clear up after the children.
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I think this is a fantastic idea, when i went to school in the uk we had hot school meals throughout rimary and secondry, there was also the chice for children to bring packed lunches if they wanted.
I do not think it is been lazy that people want to see hot meals in schools, and i cant belive people would say such a thing.
I think Jersey needs to get into the 21st century and provide a choice rather than be so backward!!!
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Also lets take into account the growing number of children who now suffer from food allergies, it is easier for a parent to make a healthily lunch then it is to try and match a school hot meal so a child is not treated any differently. Children with food allergies can at times have it hard enough with out being made to feel even more removed. In my view it is really not that hard to make a healthy lunch for a child and it does somewhat concern me that people may find this hard to do. I think if people made there own packed lunch as well at the same time you may see a considerable amount of money saved instead of popping out and buying lunch everyday, at the end of the day if your making one you may as well make one for yourself and save some money – hey ho just my thoughts!!!
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I agree. I hated packed lunches – the soggy fruit, the terrible bread, the thin slither of ham, the condensation EVERYWHERE. I couldn’t wait to get out of primary school
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Me again, I wonder what hot lunches these ladies are planning for the 6 weeks their kids will be out of school this summer. Or will it just be a sandwich? once you have exhausted sandwich contents varieties, start again. Then vary the breads/rolls/baps etc. It REALLY is not that hard, even dare I say it, a cold piece of pizza, chicken or sausage roll ONCE in a while will not do a child (mine anyway) any harm.It does not have to be strictly sandwiches ALL the time, Get a grip
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What about the 6000 name petition against any more taxes? Are these mothers expecting others to donate time and materials for free? Sorry it is the parent’s responsibility to feed their children, not everybody else’s through taxation.
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Having researched this subject for the past year and having children of my own, of which my husband and I provide healthy nutritional evening meals every day of the year and healthy nutritional lunches during the school holidays, we feel that we by no means wish to shift responsibility of feeding our children onto anyone else and this is really not the purpose of the campaign. Unfortunately, the article has missed many points.
Having been educated on the mainland and had healthy hot school meals, I do have some knowledge of how well it can work and how much it educates children to eat well. Let us not forget, and as we said in the article we wrote, hot lunches are not to replace the family evening meal, as Jamie Oliver says, a lunchtime school meal should provide a growing child with one third of their daily nutritional intake. The clue is in the title, i.e. Food for Thought. Given the correct nutritional food during the day, which is by far, the best part of the day for a child to have their main meal of the day, gives children, fuel to feed the brain, helps them concentrate and gives the teacher a better behaved child. More than often once a child returns home from school and it gets to dinner time, they are more often too tired to eat or have other things on the agenda.
The fact is also that sadly here in Jersey, not everyone has adequate cooking facilities, ie live in rooms, bedsits and shared facilities, so it is not always that simple for some people, and this is often forgotten.
It is clearly evident that obesity is on the increase and therefore to educate children at a young age the importance of a healthy balanced meal, could be helped by providing meals at schools and actually getting them involved in the process. Where else can you get such fantastic local produce than here in Jersey – hence Jamie Oliver etc sourcing local produce from Jersey. Hard to believe when we send our children to school with a sandwich, fruit and yoghurt every day for 7 years.
We did not say that catering facilities would need to be built at schools, though we did comment as to why they had not been built in the new schools. There are many other ways of bringing a healthy hot meal into schools without them having their own cooking facilities and we did mention this in our article. This method of providing catering to schools by outsourcing underused kitchens in community centres and pubs has been done by Jamie Oliver for sometime and has proved very successful.
Our independent survey showed that most people preferred a hot meal and a minority said they would like to have the choice and all were willing to pay for it.
Providing a child with a packed lunch for about 7 years, especially when you have a fussy child, can be almost impossible and from experience and from listening to others, have exhausted every filling of a sandwich and pitta you can imagine and theres quite a few years to go yet!
We welcome opinions whether for or against as everyone has a different opinion and as with everything, we will never all agree on the same thing.
My personal opinion for my oldest son is that when he attended nursery, they supplied a healthy hot meal on a daily basis for a small fee. This meal was outsourced and came freshly cooked in hot dishes ready to serve. He would eat it and even have seconds and sometimes thirds, if there was enough! Since attending primary school, he has become fussy and has taken a dislike to any cold food, or warm as the case may be, once the food as been in the bag with an ice block for more than 4 hours. I cannot even say that he is fussy about all foods because if he eats a hot meal at a friends house, he will eat exactly what they are eating and will not complain. He also eats hot meals at home. It is evident that children do copy one another and will eat what the other child is eating, especially when there is variety in the food, but when the variety of food is a sandwich, it doesn’t matter what colour the bread is, what the filling is or what shape you cut it, a sandwich is a sandwich and the type of filling that a child has on a sandwich does not have the nutritional values a child needs to keep the brain going for a school day.
To conclude, we feel it is important to educate a child at a young age to ‘eat well’ and this should begin at a young age. To start educating a child in school at age 11 where there are canteens serving the secondry school food that may not be nutritional is madness and they will have picked up bad eating habits by that stage and clearly ‘missed the boat’.
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Apart from the narrow minded minority it seems that most people understand the benefits of children having freshly cooked highly nutritional hot meals rather than processed cheese or ham slapped between processed sliced bread during their school day.
You can’t argue with that.
As far as the cost goes, don’t forget that your dodgy packed lunch is probably costing you £1 – £2 a day anyway – you do the maths.
As for parents wanting to dump their responsibilities – wake up! Would they really go to all this trouble if that was the aim?
Hot school dinners for my two boys every time.
Good luck with the campaign Kim and Lyndsey.
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Fussy Eaters. Well, there lies the problem right there. Why would one allow their kids to develop such poor eating habits and become fussy eaters. I appreciate that we all have our likes and dislikes, but come on, if kids learn from an early age to eat what is put in front of them then they will grow up enjoying a healthy and varied diet whilst appreciating different foods and cooking styles from all over the world.
Fussy eaters? Not in my house! They eat what is put in front of them (within reason) or they go hungry! and that goes for adults too!
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So nothing unusual here – I have had children and YOU will have to pay for them.
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Ridiculous idea!
Not only will all the schools have to provide adequate catering facilities and staff, but you will also get all the problems with fussiness over the menus offered. Vegetarians, vegans and even certain religions will have their own dietary requirements.
Haven’t the schools got enough to contend with due to poor parenting skills and letting their kids run riot!!
Do any parents want to take SOME responsibility for their offspring instead of trying to pass the buck to all and sundry instead!
Why not give your kids a nice packed salad, pasta meal or whatever else (plenty more ideas if you took long enough to think about it) if they are getting bored of sandwiches everyday….SIMPLE!
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Just read Kim 12′s comment.
that may be fair enough, but as Mark (1) said not all parents can afford this luxury and it certainly should not be up to the taxpayer to foot the bill for them.
If you could arrange this then it would be nice for adults too. I would certainly like a nice warm meal once in a while at my desk instead of a sandwich. But guess what, if I’m hungry I will eat anything to satisfy my stomach likewise for kids I’m sure. I for one do not remember what I had for lunches most time when I was at school and it certainly didn’t scar me like it may have John (9):-)
Perhaps your child is just TOO fussy!
Besides, what about summer time when it is supposed to be hot…how many kids will still want a hot meal then….or will they want sandwiches!
Maybe giving your kids a flask of soup/stew may be better than starting a campaign that won’t get you anywhere.
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This campaign is not about getting the tax payer to subsidise what we feed our children. These women want parents to have the option of hot meals. It is not intended to be compulsory and those parents who prefer to provide a packed lunch would be able to do so.
It should be possible for all schools to put in place a system whereby children have the option of a freshly prepared and nutritious meal and lunch time. In some cases the food would be cooked on site, in others it would be cooked off site and brought into the school. In practice the cost is likely to be no more or only slightly more than the cost of a packed lunch.
For me the issue is not really about whether the meal is healthy as it is clearly possible to have a healtly packed lunch. It is much more about developing a health interest in food and promoting the social benefits of sitting down and eating together.
There is also the huge advantage that many children will eat a much more varied diet if encouraged to do so by their peers.
Maybe good quality schools meals are a bit of a luxury, but to my mind they are definitely worth it.
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Do they still get their milk ?
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I’m not sure that the article put these lady’s views over too well, but I completely agree with what they are trying to do.
For some children, a healthy school meal might be the only one of any nutritional value they have in a day – and before anyone shouts about ‘that’s up to the parents’ I agree again, but it’s a reality that some kids are fed an unhealthy diet – and this reality will cost the tax payer in the end, in health provision.
I also feel eating in a group, at a table, with cutlery is an important social school and would become a by-product of school meal provision. Not all children get this chance at home unfortunately.
I have a child at school who has packed lunch and I don’t have trouble providing it, but I would definitely order a school meal if one was available – as I do with my other nursery-age child.
Good luck in your campaign. If something is important to you you should fight for it – apathy does noone any good.
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Elane @ 18. Food made off site and bought in, ugh, can you imagine how that is going to be by the time it arives on the dinner plate?
Re schools having facilities on site, I have made some calculations based on my limited knowledge of installing a new kitchen and employing kitchen staff.
After the innital cost of installing kitchen facilities at several ten’s of thousands of pounds lets call it 20K to keep figures simple, then employment of a cook and assistant at lets call that £1000 a week after contributions and insurance and running costs, so an annual cost of £39,000 (39 school weeks in a year).
Then multiply that by 28 (number of primary schools in Jersey) you are asking for parents to cough up £560,000 and then just on 1.1million per annum and that’s not taking into consideration food and fuel costs.
Elena (18), who is going to pick up the cost of this if the tax payer doesn’t. Parents?
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Perhaps the educators should be allowed to concentrate on educating and the parents should concentrate on parenting.
My employers are under no obligation to provide me with a canteen and hot meals so why should a school?
Teachers have enough to do in this day and age because parents aren’t doing their bit at home!
Has anyone even asked the kids what they want?
Pathetic.
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….you’d think judging by some of the pro hot meal comments that the realism would be a restaurant like offering, with a huge choice on the menu and after dinner coffees!
Elena … “social benefits of sitting down and eating together”?????
Also, “There is also the huge advantage that many children will eat a much more varied diet if encouraged to do so by their peers.”…that is YOUR responsibility as a parent, not the schools!
They’re kids and mostly just want to go out and play with their pals not strike up dinner conversations discussing the morality of the invasion of Iraq!
I know for a fact that when I was a kid (and many, many others) we didn’t really like sitting down at lunchime. We wolfed down our food so we could go back out to play and enjoy ourselves.
What next? Breakfast? Afternoon tea? Take-aways to your desk in class?
Get real!
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It is as easy to think of a different, nutritious type of packed lunch for 5 days a week during the school term times, as it is to conjure up a different evening meal 7 days a week.
A little imagination an pre-planning is all it takes, and as for the packed lunches being hot, have they never heard of cool bags??
I was subjected to ‘hot school dinners’ and they were dreadful. I know what most children would prefer and provided they have a hearty breakfast and a healthy evening meal the little dears will not suffer too much!
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I agree with Kim and Lyndsey. I think it would benefit the children greatly to receive a choice of a hot healthy meal, especially during the winter months and maybe a freshly made salad in the summer. I also believe that this would improve concentration levels, which can only be a good thing.
We provide our children (ages 3 and 11) with healthy and varied packed lunches yet they still come back half eaten and I assure you my kids are not by any means fussy eaters nor are they spoilt. During the winter, soup/stew is a great idea but who wants to eat soup/stew every day of the week.
Schools shouldn’t really feel the need to give children snacks that we parents are paying for, if the children have eaten a good healthy breakfast, followed by a varied and healthy lunch, a snack should not be required. Surely this is teaching children that snacking is OK.
We have some great Jersey produce in the Island and I am sure that the schools/outside caters could get a good deal on a load of locally grown fruit and vegetables.
I believe that schools should have been built with cooking facilities, especially those built within the last four years. Maybe if they would have been, it would provide some part-time jobs for parents who could then easily work around the times when their children are at school.
I wish Kim and Lyndsey the very best of luck and hope that the campaign doesn’t fall on deaf ears.
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You cannot please all of the people all of the time but I support these ladies in their efforts.I agree it is better for a child to have a cooked mid-day meal as long as it it is nutritious and healthy and the parents pay for it themselves.I know I would have been happy to do so for my children when they were at school in Jersey.If it is optional I cannot see what the problem is.
My grandaughter aged 2 attends nursery here in England on 2 days a week for mornings only and this includes a hot lunch which she loves.She always gives me a run-down on what she ate and how many portions she had as we drive home!
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I agree with Christine (3) as we also lived in France and my kids had hot lunches at primary and secondary schools. HOWEVER please note Jersey Mums that there were NO CHOICES for your kids – each day a set menu with 3 courses of excellent value and very healthy- so upshot is it wont work in Jersey as Parents will be concerned that their little offspring wont be able to choose if they dont like the menu of the day- answer= dont give them a choice just tell them they have to eat it!!!!
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‘Primary children take a packed lunch to school five days a week, 38 weeks a year, for seven years,’ said Mrs Hanson. ‘From an independent survey we have undertaken, we have found that most parents struggle on a daily basis to vary a packed lunch. ‘
Erm. Ok.
If parents are seriously struggling to come up with 5 or more different types of healthly sandwich choices which they can produce they aren’t trying hard enough.
Mon cheese and pickle
Tues: Egg and cress
Wed: chicken and lettuce
Thur: ham salad
Fri: tuna
That took me about 45 seconds. Insert sandwich into lunchbox along with piece of fruit, drink and hey presto. Maybe a crunchie bar if its Friday.
If your little darlings are such connoisseurs that this isn’t varied enough for their sophisticated pallets then I would suggest that mass produced hot food isn’t going to satisfy them either, so its probably a moot point.
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How many of you that have commented have children?
Its not about shifting the responisbility if anything its being more responsible about our kids diets!
Kids lunch boxes are policed at schools so there is no pizza etc otherwise its taken away from them. Some kids then end up with no lunch at all because the parents dont listen
Apart from that i think its terrible that a proper decent hot meal is not provided at schools over here. I back this campaign whole heartedly. it isnt the tax payer paying for the meals its the parents!!
“Mon cheese and pickle
Tues: Egg and cress
Wed: chicken and lettuce
Thur: ham salad
Fri: tuna
That took me about 45 seconds. Insert sandwich into lunchbox along with piece of fruit, drink and hey presto. Maybe a crunchie bar if its Friday.”
Sorry but i dont know many primary school kids that eat lettuce, salad and pickle!!
Maybe wake up and think of it from a kids point of view not an adult!
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“Sorry but i dont know many primary school kids that eat lettuce, salad and pickle”
So you are saying that primary school don’t like eating healthy sandwiches? I would reiterate the comments in this thread that suggest it should be the parents dictating that the child has a healthy diet, not the child dictating an unhealthy one to the parent.
But anyway nitpicking over the details of individual selections ignores the point that its not particularly difficult to come up healthy choices, and if they really wont eat lettuce and you don’t want to put your foot down, swap it with something else. If they won’t eat anything healthy then im sorry but you need to be firmer with them.
Just saying they won’t eat it and that we should knock up hot foot isn’t going to solve the issue because give it a few weeks and we’ll be hearing “Im sorry but I don’t know many primary school children who’ll eat vegetables with their hot lunches”
Loading them up with fishfingers and chips every day might be what they’d want given the choice but that would shift your rationale behind this to passing the work and cost onto the school rather than increasing the nutritional value of the food, which I’m sure you are not trying to do.
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I have four children. One has just left school and three are in secondary.
The secondary schools that they attend do offer a canteen option for lunch. Sadly this is often abused as they money given for lunch is spent on unhealthier options on the menu such as bacon butties.
So we have switched back to lunch boxes.
They all have varied and exiting lunches and rarely come home with leftovers and that’s also catering for one child who is vegetarian. There are multitude of web sites which offer excellent ideas and suggestions for lunches which don’t have to be about flabby sandwiches and Monster Munch.
Some parents should try taking just a bit of extra time and effort with making lunches rather than a hurried cheese roll at 7.50am.
Try different themes … cous cous, rice or pasta.
Mixed salads, roast vegetables, sliced meats – including quorn.
Home made pate, soups in winter, smoothies in the summer as well as your regular sandwiches. Try having your child involved in the making of their lunch. A passion for food starts with the enjoyment of preparation.
All of the above will take you no longer than 20 minutes a night.
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#5 & 6 Well said.
If your child is fussy then teach your child to not be fussy. If you kid’s only options are eat what they are given or don’t eat then I can assure you they’ll choose the former (after making a point of course). It is your responsibility and if coming up with new ideas for a packed lunch is your biggest worry then I envy you. And if you give in just because your child throws a strop then you have some fun years to come!
Hot meals is a great idea and it would be nice if they were available but they would have to be paid for by parents, I’m not paying for other people’s kids to be fed. Why don’t the mums get training and the proper certification and take on the job of cooking hot meals themselves?
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Sarah H, I know quite a few kids that happily eat the kind of things Simon listed. These are kids whose parents have made them try different things from a young age rather than let the kid determine what it will and won’t eat (“I don’t like that, it’s green”) You’re the adult, the kid doesn’t know any different, you have to educate the kid to try different things. Pizza and chips is quite bland once kids know what lovely flavours are out there.
I also know adopted kids who were seriously malourished when living with their biological parents, and surprise, surprise, years on they’ll still eat anything that you put in front of them and be grateful for being fed. Nor did war-time generations have the issues we seem to have today with kids getting to choose what they will and won’t eat. It’s about discipline. And I know parents will often claim that they really try (and I don’t doubt that some do) but I see mums at the zoo regularly just giving in to their child’s demands. Once you give in the battle is lost until you stop giving in.
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I have just come back to this one, again! love some of the comments but no time to quote all the good ones.
My kids would of course be fussy if they were allowed to be, it takes more than one time trying something before a child really knows if they like something or not.
We never had much money growing up in Niagara, my Mom was on welfare and she had to feed the 3 kids still left at home, I pretty much had “shaved” turkey (very thinly sliced probably processed) every day that I can remember with lettuce sometimes, no other snack and water from the fountain. I never complained, I ate what I was given and enjoyed it as guess what? it was lunch time and I was hungry.
I was always healthy, did well, very well at track and field events/ cross country skiing etc without feeling overly lathargic at the end, paid attention in class and did well.
To be honest a weeks rotation or maybe 2 at the most on the sandwich thing is fine, my kids would love ham cheese and pickle everyday if I gave it to them.
The special K, Weetabix with honey or maple syrup,(usually) or dare I say SUGAR PUFFS I give them, (ready brek with honey or maple syrup in winter quite often) plus a vitamin (to keep them topped up)and glass of O.J in the mornings sees them through til their snack, then their sanwich which usually contains one variety or another of dairy, meat, bread, vegetable, fish (pretty balanced) plus dried or fresh fruit and cheese and a drink sees them through to a snack before their third healthy main meal of the day which is dinner I cook for them.(you should see my recipe and family favourites recipe cupboard)
I love cooking, I would much rather cook for my kids then let someone else feed them with who only knows what is in it or how fresh.
My daughteres lunch bag comes home empty everyday, she is like her sister, Mom, and Dad, NOT FUSSY, healthy, not obese…
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And for the kids going back for 2nd and 3rd portions of this healthy hot lunch, don’t get obese now.
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Mark, well said.
It does make me wonder what these parents think they are doing in letting such young children be ‘fussy’ and have control over such an important part of their lives. All they are really doing is setting them up for disappointment in later life. Kids should eat what they are given and over time it will become obvious what they really don’t like and what they are just being children and throwing a hissy fit about for no good reason, THEN the parents can choose (if they want) to alter meals accordingly.
Parents are in charge from birth, control around what they eat is one of the many important ways that parents establish their role as an authority figure. The kids go to school and add teachers to their authority figures, then they leave school and get jobs and their boss is a new authority figure. On top of that there is, of course, the law and those that enforce it. If young kids won’t obey their parents there’s a pretty good chance they won’t bother much about any other authority figures ever.
So I wonder how little Timmy will fair in the real world if he hasn’t learnt that the majority of the time we don’t get exactly what we want? Well he’ll go hungry, not apply himself at school, struggle to hold down a job, all because he’ll have learned that he should have his own way.
When food is bought with your own hard earned cash and made by you then you can have entirely what you want, as long as it is paid for and made by someone else (eg. weddings, business meetings, dinner at friends/family etc.) then you pretty much eat what you are given or go hungry for a while.
That’s life, best they get prepared for it young, and the more different foods they try when they are young the more they’ll find out they like and the less likely they’ll go hungry in later life.
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@Christine – France – keener on social welfare and as a consequence a little bit keener on taxation, so not a good comparison for our fair isle, imo.
Hot lunches – based on my experience I would run a mile from the type of cost controlled boiled to death slop I was offered at school – maybe things have changed dramatically. Give me a lunch my Mum or Dad made with a bit of thought and care any day. As for getting bored with lack of variety, I seem to remember coping with sliced bread or a roll. Couldn’t tell you the fillings, can tell you that what ever was or wasn’t there hasn’t impacted my emotional or physical development. Bottom line, if you want they joy of kids then ‘man up’ and put some effort in to raising them.. otherwise go for a goldfish – they are happy with the same easy to prepare meal every day.
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As far as I can see this is not a campaign to allow parents to shift parental responsibility, these “two mothers” are doing this for the benefit of their own and other children!
My son is not a fussy eater and will eat everything in his lunch box, however I still believe he should have the choice of a cooked lunch at school, just like the majority of UK and European schools. I support this campaign and feel Jersey is behind the times. I grew up in the UK and had a well balanced healthy cooked lunch every day and it certainly was not slop but a well thought out and balanced diet prepared by people who cared for the well being of the children – not a turkey twizzler or fish finger in sight. Those who did not wish to eat the school lunch took their own sandwiches.
I am baffled by some of the comments implying that mothers are lazy and allow their children to be fussy eaters. This is 2009 and, believe it or not, things have changed and in a lot of families both parents have to work and are far from lazy. This campaign is to encourage schools to provide a cooked lunch for children. It is not about lazy parents who cannot be bothered to prepare a packed lunch for their children who are all fussy eaters. If you look at in another way it is about a small island which has seen a chance to cut costs and one of the first things to go has been a school canteen and a cooked lunch.
School meals would be paid for by parents but there would have to be some tax payers money used for the provision of a kitchen within each school. Private schools and nurseries are able to provide this facility and most “private” education within the island is subsidised by the tax payer so why not allow local authority schools to have the same facility and for some of the money wasted on other projects to be used for a worthwhile cause. Get the right people in place to run and control this and it will be a winner.
Good luck with the campaign. Do not give up because someone says you are lazy mothers. Far from it, most of the mothers today have to “do it all” and put a great deal into the Jersey economy. Wouldn’t it be nice to see some of that money going back into a scheme to make it better?
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j-cAT (37) Just to advise you, laws have changed in France and you have to pay your way for the first five years, no social handouts.
We find it better to live in France with our6+ bedrooms, 2 acres of land etc for less than an average house in Jersey with a postage stamp garden.
I praise the women trying to do this, how many of you with children struggle with preparing tea, workinmg full time, ferrying kids around to afterschool clubs etc? How many of you families actually all sit down together for an evening meal??
In todays society parents often have to work late, or in some cases return back to work once the other parent is home, (been there got the t-shirt) tea ends up being a hurried affair sometimes with arguments.
I have found that my daughter initially struggled with the french food/diet provided at school, and yes it is a set meal, eat or go hungry., but she enjoys the meals,eats plenty of seasonal fruit and veg, and even has menus that she looks forward too. The biggest complaint i get is when its a different cook and things are not done exactly the same!
In the evening she has a little tea as I have to cook for myself and a toddler and at weekends we always have family meals together.
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In response to J-Cat comment (37) my initial comment (3) was my comparison between Jersey & France, your comment “keener on social welfare and as a consequence a little bit keener on taxation, so not a good comparison for our fair isle, imo.” really not relevant as you now have to be able to support yourself for the first 5 years in France and therfore no social handouts, a bit like Jersey. Also prices of food is relative with meat & veg actually sometimes being more expensive.
The main difference is France does not encourage fast food (it has only recently got a KFC) they do encourage family /peers eating together and eating homecooked traditional food.
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Someone commented about pizza and that the schools would not allow your child to eat it or something along those lines!
There is nothing wrong with pizza, we eat that every couple of weeks in my house, some of the store bought frozen for 99p may or may not be healthy, I don’t really know.
But, we all eat bread right?, well that’s what a pizza base is,and I do tend to make my own. As far as the sauce goes that I make, it consists of tomatoes, tomato puree, garlic, olive oil, black pepper , lots of oregano, salt and sugar, yes salt, unless you are eating spoonfulls it is not bad for you.(brings out the flavour in everything)try going for a long run or cycle without replenishing your salts, athletes drink those isotonic etc drinks for a reason, they wont drink just water.
So far we have a healthy pizza,
as for the cheese, that is usually grated cheddar, the same we all eat in sandwiches and or buffalo mozzarella,less is more! toppings are usually one of a variety of green peppers mushrooms ham tomatoes pineapple etc etc.
Now please don’t tell me the teacher at my daughters school will confiscate that, if they do maybe they need a course in nutrition.
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LC, I think it was the women’s own comments that made it sound a bit like they were looking for help with parenting. You can’t blame the public for that.
Hot meals may be good but actually a packed lunch does no harm to the child so why should taxpayer’s money be used to provide a luxury service to children.
And I can assure you that I see plenty of non-working mothers every week who make very little attempt to discipline their children in any way. Every week I am astounded as someone watches their kid disobey rules set by the premises or ‘vandalise’ the owner’s property and the parent does absolutely nothing about it. And no, I’m not talking poor parents here, these are quite clearly some wealthy people who obviously just have a complete disregard for anyone else’s property or their child’s discipline.
I can say what I say because I see it every week, I am saying it from experience. And I made the decision a long time ago to not have children because I don’t want to send kids to school with those that have been ‘raised’ like these other kids are.
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Oh, forgot to say… one such set of parents sat and happily chatted and had wine with their lunch while their child entered an area that was marked as out of bounds (the kid had to crawl under a barrier to get into it). The kid came up to me (a complete stranger) and started tugging on my trouser leg while I was trying to conduct a meeting! Did the parents do anything? NO! Of course not. I escorted the kid out of the area (which is NOT my job frankly) and then watched as the same child went over and started to put his hands into the bucket of diluted bleach that a staff member was using to clean the floor… again the parents watched and did nothing.
I’ll admit I was seriously tempted to just let the toddler play with the bleach and let the parents try and sue.
Apparently some parents think that the minute they enter a shop/cafe/office it is the job of the staff to parent their children!
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Whether you are both working or not, if you can’t handle work and having kids then do us all a favour and don’t have any.
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@38 LC.
I can understand some parents wanting their children to have a choice of hot meals at school, and in an ideal world with an unlimited budget I would not object, but in the current climate I will object to money being spent on this as either a tax payer, or as a parent when it is not necessary. I believe any extra money available could be spent on more worthy causes.
As for the campaign being a shift of parental responsibility, Ms Hanson’s own comments were surrounding the difficulties in providing a packed lunch 5 days a week, (what nonsense!) and then she replied through this forum saying her child was a fussy eater.
Therefore, I stand by my previous posts. Use a little imagination and teach your kids not to be so fussy and perhaps she may not recieve so many comments opposing her.
I would like to know a little more about the survey. Having asked around my friends and family I have not met anyone yet that took part in it so this rules out at least 8 schools. I would also like to add that having conducted a little survey of my own the majority feeling was to give your kids a packed lunch.
Did Ms Hansons and Ms Evans conduct an island wide survey or was this a quick chat at the end of the day in the playground?
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15 Overpopulated “So nothing unusual here – I have had children and YOU will have to pay for them”.
I fully agree with this comment. I already object to having my tax and social security used to fund the upkeep of other people’s children, so I certainly would not agree to even more going into the “breeding fund”.
And – 44 Leah Holmes “Whether you are both working or not, if you can’t handle work and having kids then do us all a favour and don’t have any”. Spot on too!
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I’d also be interested to know that when these children are not at school as in weekends or school holidays, does Ms Hanson and Ms Evans rush home every lunchtime to prepare a delicious hot meal for them.
I can’t imagine many kids wanting to leave the park, beach, woods, sandunes etc etc to go home for a sit down meal when a simple (but healthy) sandwhich would suffice. Or would that not be convenient?
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After reading some of the comments on here, I feel I need to say my piece (I am usually the quiet one), however the JEP article leads the reader to believe we are asking for kitchens to be built in schools (which we are not), this would lead the reader to assume that funding would be required from the tax payer. We are not looking for kitchens to be built, but to outsource i.e. looking at under used kitchens or pubs/hotels, who already have a business, where catering could be done from there, amongst other off site options (a scheme of off site food preparation has been tried and tested in certain areas in the UK and has proved to be very successful).
The survey carried out, was not conducted from a quick chat in the play ground, we have spent some months completing the survey from the schools our children attend and from parenting groups etc. Parents completing the survey confirmed they would be prepared to pay on average £2.00/£2.50 per day, which is what they would also be prepared to pay and already pay for a packed lunch.
The survey was a brief survey in which the questions were aimed at those with children of primary school age and was not a debate on spending tax payers money, as we have no intention on spending tax payers money. We are also tax payers!
In response to some of the comments on here, regarding Kim’s comments about her boy being a fussy eater, this is Kim’s personal observation and not the opinion of all the people completing the survey and certainly not a reflection on what we are trying to achieve. I know that Kim’s children eat a wide variety of foods and I think she was trying to say she saw a change in his eating habits moving from a cooked lunch at pre – school to a packed lunch (she wasn’t saying he never eats anything).
My personal reasons for becoming involved in this campaign is for my children not so that I can have an easy life and shun my parental responsibilities as I do make my son’s packed lunch with love and care and believe it or not I do pop the odd sausage/pasta salad etc in there, (my son loves all types of food and eats all his packed lunch day in day out and my daughter currently at a private pre-school is getting a hot lunch every day and loves it). I grew up in the UK and had cooked school lunches (no slop), well balanced healthy lunches (with fish and chips on a Friday) and feel that Jersey is a little behind the times and with the right people and businesses the cooked lunch option can be achieved (again without tax payers money).
I cook for my family every night and don’t want people to think that this campaign is to make a cooked lunch the main meal of the day and take away from“family time”, but again it is about choice and letting the children/families have a choice as to whether or not they have a cooked lunch or take a packed lunch, because we know that not all families will want to have the cooked lunch option, but in the winter months they may be more popular than the summer months, but just to know it is there for people.
I like to see my children eat and want to see a cooked lunch provided for primary age children, this campaign is to try and get people on board, whether it be in the catering industry with the relevant facilities to try and make it work and not spend tax payers money on setting up kitchens (for a developing business, not within the schools as we are aware that this is not an option and again it is not about using tax payers money). Jamie Oliver has shown that the outside catering option can work in schools and with all the great local produce on the Island it would be nice to see the children enjoy it with their school friends.
It has been scientifically proven that a healthy breakfast and a well balanced, healthy lunch aids concentration, learning and play.
“Food for Thought”
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Lyndsey, your two main points seem to be science and money. Well it has been scientifically proven that many raw foods are healthier than cooked foods and therefore, a packed lunch can actually be more nutritious and better for children than a cooked lunch. That is really food for thought.
This campaign really does not seem to be about science. And no-one is suggesting that the kids should be deprived of a good breakfast and lunch.
As for money, you fail to say how this ‘outsourcing’ will be paid for, outsourcing still requires funding after all. If this comes entirely from the parents I have no issue with it at all, I really don’t, but I do not ask anyone else to pay for my food and I don’t expect to have to pay for someone elses either.
Why don’t the mums club together, set up a company, get all the required certification and authorisation and supply cooked meals themselves? Parents that wish their child to have these hot meals could pay a set amount per week.
I’m sorry if you think any of the comments on here seem a bit harsh, I totally understand that you are just trying to do what you believe is a good thing for your children, and I don’t believe anyone is knocking that, but money is an issue with this, and your health point is moot (see my first paragraph).
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Dear Lyndsay and Kim.
Just some questions to satisfy my curiosity, and then I might shut up on the subject.
1). Has it bean scientifically proven that children who have not had a cooked meal every lunch time have been disadvantaged in any way? – I had packed lunches everyday at school and I am a fit and healthy man with an IQ of 146.
2). How you arrive at the figure of £2-£2.50 a day? In some of the smaller schools, even if half the children opted for a cooked meal I don’t think you would have enough to cover the costs of kitchen staff and running costs, let alone buying the food. How would you subsidise that?
3). Of the parents who agreed to pay £2.50 a day, how many were from families on benefits or low income families who might not be able to afford that much? Will this option only be available for those that can afford it or are you planning on sudsidising those that can’t from those that can?
4). How do you plan to provide meals for approx 6500 primary school children in 28 schools. that’s 28 lots of caterers, kitchens, kitchen staff or delvery drivers etc etc etc whilst keeping to your budget? Who will over see this or do you plan on school staff to forfeit valuable teaching time to run the lunchtimes as well?
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Firstly well done to Kim & Lyndsey, and many thanks for bringing this to the public domain.
The fact that the youngest children are being deprived of something we all took for granted when we were young is a Island wide disgrace, policitians should hang their heads in shame.
This island of ours after all is the one of the wealthiest places on earth, but still we can not, or will not set aside funds for the nourishment of our youngest citizens.
Politicans may come across as understanding and sympathetic, however I recall a couple of years ago they were trying to think of ways stop the school milk programme.
The sad fact is for many different reasons, lots of children do not get anywhere near the daily nutrition they need form their packed lunches, sometimes not eating anything at all. We then expect them sit still, concentrate and learn in school.
As Jamie Oliver said you get out what you put in, the benefits are too numerous to list.
Children who are nourished properly and regularly are proven to be far better students, they take more in, they can recall more easily what they have just been taught, teachers are able to teach without having to discipline unruly students as often, indeed children, schools and society benefit in so many ways, that we just cannot see all the “wins” that there are, however the only issue seems to be is the bottom line cost today.
It is a sad fact, but the inmates of the Islands prison, likely have a far superior diet to some of our less fortunate and youngest children.
I know of children being bullied at school and being forced into giving up their lunch.
I wonder how many other situations there are like this that go undetected.
The estimated cost to the Island, of the exchange rate issue related to the new incinerator project at La Collette, we are told is put at around £6,000,000.00 ( Six Million Pounds ), and we are informed it could actually be far higher, yet this seems to have been brushed aside.
Do not be fooled by politicians saying that they need to install kitchens and employ staff to supply meals, all things are possible.
The States are now spending some of the strategic reserve to try to stimulate the local economy, pump money into many different capital projects, such as roads, the shoreline, ect so why not School dinners?.
I personally believe this function could all be outsourced, have the states tried asking a local repuatable restaurateur / business to put a quote in to supply 3000 meals per day, 40 odd weeks per year?.
I am sure someone would be able to come up with a solution at a competitive price.
The current cost of suppling packed lunches could be put toward the new hot school meals programme, I am sure most parents would jump at the chance and would willingly contribute, I know I would.
Thnak you
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Some people are making out like we all had hot meals at school when we were kids! I am 38 and never did and it was not offered until high school. I never lived in the UK though. I lived here for a few years and Canada
I am going to start a campaign. My employer should offer me a well balanced hot meal everyday for lunch. oops, nearly forgot, there are too many sandwich shops around town to pick from with some really nice healthy sandwiches, if I have not made my own healthy one that is already.
I know when I was a kid, I wanted to eat my sandwich then go out and play, how long does it take to eat a hot meal after waiting in line for it?
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Kim and Lyndsey will have a revolt on their hands now Mark!
I wonder if their kids have thought about all that lost playtime until you gave them the idea?
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Maybe we should just not let them out to play at all, do school work ALL day, bring even more work home at night every night as if all day in school isn’t enough, do that, eat,then sleep. Forget playing, you did enough of that up to the age of 4.
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